Governance

The work within COFFI is organised around six different committees/groups:

The Steering Committee comprises all Principal Investigators (PIs) in included cohorts, labelled COFFI partners. The Steering Comitteee is chaired by the leader of the COFFI collaborative.

The Executive Committee comprises the leader and the deputy leader of the collaborative, as well as a data manager, a biorepository manager, and an administrative assistant at the host institution.

The Members' Group include scientists who are generally interested in post-infective fatigue research but do not lead or run a post-infective cohort study themselves. COFFI members may be invited to join Project Working Groups (see below) as well as participate in general scientific and strategic discussions within the collaborative.

Project Working Groups (PWG) are ad hoc groups arranged around one research aim that may be investigated within the COFFI collaborative. A PWG should always include one PI or lead co-investigator. Additional group members are freely assembled as needed. The group should submit a research idea with a concept sheet to the Steering Committee for review and approval before the group may proceed with data analyses based on the common COFFI database and/or biobank. The PWGs are responsible for drafting scientific abstracts and papers based on approved concepts sheets, and publication and dissemination of results.

The Consumer Advisory Committee comprises of individuals who have first-hand experience with post-infective fatigue or chronic fatigue syndrome, either as sufferers themselves, or as next-of-kin.

The Scientific Advisory Board consists of distinguished researchers in the field who are not otherwise affiliated with the COFFI collaborative or single COFFI cohorts.

COFFI has a policy for the disclosure of conflicts of interest of all COFFI committee members using a standard template. Conflict of Interest (COI) statements from each committee member are stored securely in the COFFI records, but can be released upon reasonable request to individuals with appropriate consideration of member confidentiality.

Further details are given in the formal Consortium Agreement.

Revised 12th July 2023